The present invention relates to a computer-implemented system and method of managing access to personal information, such as in connection with the display of a form by a computer.
Privacy and security are becoming more important as information technology and the Internet are used increasingly to transmit personal information for commerce, banking, employment and other purposes such as obtaining health care. Legitimate merchants generally take steps to safeguard users' personal information by encrypting user personal information in transit and take steps to avoid disclosure. However, through e-mails, websites, bulletin boards, chatrooms, etc., criminals can cause malicious programs to be installed on the computers of unsuspecting users. Some types of malicious programs are designed to capture user personal information illegitimately and funnel it to criminals' hands. For example, malicious programs may incorporate a keylogger program which records keystrokes inputted by way of a keyboard. The keylogger program may then store the recorded keystrokes and transmit them to a criminal's computer for a nefarious purpose such as to steal one's credit card or debit card information or one's identity. Users' home addresses, phone numbers, birth date, etc., can be used for a number of crimes. Keylogger programs are particularly insidious, because they can run as background programs undetected for long periods of time unless users have other programs installed on their computers designed to combat this threat.
With the proliferation of programs designed to protect against malicious programs such as viruses, programs which display unwanted advertisements (“adware”), and programs which illegitimately collect data from user computers (“spyware”), even sophisticated computer users can be confused about what protections are provided by their installed protection programs. Some computer users may not even have protection programs installed on their computers. The present situation gives criminals an opportunity to steal personal information by way of keylogger programs or other programs designed to record user input.